This
article focuses on two rewritings of Euripides’s Medea
– Marina Carr’s By the Bog of Cats (1998) and
Paulo Pontes/Chico Buarque’s Gota D’Água: Uma Tragédia
Brasileira (1975) – with the intention of discussing
the similar solutions found by the Irish and the Brazilian
playwrights to culturally contextualise their versions
of the Greek tragedy in contemporary times.

The
five plays belonging to the second phase of Marina Carr’s
theatre production – the so-called ‘phase of Midlands’
(1994-2002) – present a common feature regarding the technique
employed by the Irish playwright. This consists of, as
Eilis Ní Dhuibhne observes, ‘underpinning a play with
a folktale or myth’: ‘Portia Coughlan alludes
to Shakespearian drama, By the Bog of Cats and
On Raftery’s Hill to classical myths. In the
case of The Mai, its folkloristic parallel is
not a well-known story, but a local legend …’ (Dhuibhne
2003: 69). Although the essayist does not mention Ariel,
the same technique is used in this play, since its starting
point is classical myths as recorded by Euripides and
Aeschylus.

Carr’s
characteristic technique is clearly an intertextual procedure,
especially on two levels: allusion, which can be observed
in all the five plays mentioned, and rewriting, which
is the process used in By the Bog of Cats.

The
aim of this article is to appreciate the way Marina Carr
retells Medea as well as to establish a parallel between
By the Bog of Cats and a Brazilian play, Gota
D’Água: Uma Tragédia Brasileira, both of them based
on Euripides’ play. Manfred Pfister’s criteria for examining
intertextuality will be used as support for the analysis
where necessary. In his “Konzept der Intertextualität”
he proposes six criteria, four of which will be explained:
Referentialität (reference), Kommunikativität
(Communication), Strukturalität (structure) and
Selektivität (selectivity).

By
the Bog of Cats (1998) is referred to by Melissa
Sihra as a ‘contemporary version of Medea culturally
contextualized’ (Sihra 2003: 97), and the same can be
said about Gota D’Água (1975) by Paulo Pontes
and Chico Buarque. Although each of these plays presents
traces of its specific context, they are not limited to
national problems, and it is surprising that playwrights
from different countries and writing in different periods
of time found similar solutions on rewriting the Greek
tragedy. Moreover, the Irish and the Brazilian playwrights
share the same concern about language. Carr has been praised
by critics for the beauty of the images in her plays.
For Eilis Ní Dhuibne, for example, Marina Carr is ‘a storyteller
with a lyrical bent whose work combines poetic and narrative
qualities’ (Dhuibhne 2003: 66), while Melissa Sihra, when
referring to By the Bog of Cats, comments that
‘the landscape from which Carr writes’ is ‘where the world
of poetry and storytelling is a necessary part of the
everyday’ (Sihra 2003: 103). On the other hand, Paulo
Pontes and Chico Buarque chose to write their play in
verses with the purpose of ‘poetically’ intensifying the
dialogues, ‘in part because poetry is better to express
the depth of feelings that move the characters’, and also
because their intention, by using verses, was an attempt
to make words regain their value. Taking into account
that language is ‘the medium for organised thought’ (2),
the Brazilian authors gave priority to language over any
other theatrical devices, aiming to translate the complexity
of the Brazilian situation at the time (Pontes/ Buarque
1975: 18).

As
rewritings of Euripides’ Medea, both the Brazilian
and the Irish plays maintain the ‘set of devices with
which one text pointedly refers to another, its “pretext”’
(Pfister 1991: 210): the main characters as well as the
topics of the Greek tragedy (abandonment, rejection, banishment,
revenge and infanticide). Therefore, there is clear reference
to Euripides’ play; besides, as a literary canon, the
‘pretext’ can be easily recognised by the reader as the
structural basis for the intertexts. The deviations from
the ‘pretext’, however, are more relevant than the similarities,
since they permit the appreciation of how old texts are
renewed and contextualised. Such shifts correspond to
Pfister’s selectivity, which includes additions, suppressions
and substitutions regarding characters, structure and
motives.

The
Medea protagonists, Hester Swane (By the Bog of Cats),
and Joana (Gota D’Água) are similar to each other
regarding personality; however, the Irish and the Brazilian
‘Medeas’ are distanced from the original one in relation
to their position in society and also to the solution
they choose at the end as a way of not submitting to their
antagonist’s power. Interestingly, these shifts also contribute
to bringing Hester and Joana closer together.

The
three Medeas have a wild temperament and possess magical,
supernatural powers. Whereas Medea herself has the capacity
to make potions to make old people look young and strong
again, as well as the ability to prepare poison which
can impregnate robes, Hester has secret powers that are
not revealed, but also extraordinary, acute senses, as
she sees things that are invisible to other people, hears
ghosts and talks to them. On the other hand, Joana, the
Brazilian Medea, takes part in rituals of African origin
and practices macumba. These three strong women
allow their instinctive nature free reign:, they love
and hate passionately, and they become furious when they
face injustice, not fearing the experience of feelings
of revenge. They are, in short, neither tamed nor submissive
women. Medea is described as an impulsive and
mad woman, and Jason calls her a ‘lioness’. Hester is
characterised as a ‘savage tinker’, a ‘dangerous witch’
and as a ‘mad’ woman. Joana is compared to a ‘snake’;
she is like ‘hell’ with her ‘aggressive and intolerable
temperament’, although she is also a ‘princess’ and a
‘queen’ for an admirer of hers (3).
Carr emphasises the savage nature of women that is made
manifest in the characters’ names: Hester Swane, whose
surname resembles ‘swan’, and Catwoman, the protagonist’s
double; moreover, as soon as Hester cuts her daughter’s
throat ‘in one savage movement’, she begins to ‘wail,
a terrible animal wail’ (BBC: 339) (4).

On
the other hand, neither Hester nor Joana is a princess
in exile. Unlike Medea, they belong to the place where
they live, although they are outcasts of society. Hester
is a tinker (or a traveller), a ‘national outsider’. (5)
Joana, who does not have a regular job, had worked as
a seamstress and as a midwife, had taken care of mentally
ill people, had carried large buckets of water; in short,
she did whatever was possible for her to make a living.
Both Hester and Joana struggle to remain in their home
which belongs to them by moral rights, although not by
law. When they are banished, both of them choose death:
Hester kills herself with a knife, after killing her daughter,
whereas Joana, together with her two children, commits
suicide by eating poisoned meatballs. The similar dénouement
in the Brazilian and the Irish plays is an important shift
in relation to Euripides’s Medea, in which the
device of deus ex machina is used to provide
the heroine’s escape in regal splendour.

Medea,
as well as Jason, their children, Creon and the princess,
have their counterparts in Marina Carr’s and Paulo Pontes/Chico
Buarque’s plays; but regarding the other characters, the
contemporary playwrights have proceeded to suppressions,
substitutions or additions in order to contextualise their
plays.

In
By the Bog of Cats, the counterparts to the central
group of characters are Hester, Carthage, their daughter,
Xavier Cassidy and Caroline. Two other characters, Monica
and Catwoman, maintain little resemblance to the Greek
chorus, since they understand Hester’s motivations, and
encourage and defend her. Medea’s nurse, her childminder,
Aegeus, and the messenger, however, do not have correspondents.
In their place, nevertheless, there are other characters
that comprise the social framework of the Bog of Cat’s
community: a representative of the Catholic Church (Father
Willow), the new-rich (Mrs. Kilbride, Carthage’s mother),
and the waiters working at Carthage and Caroline’s wedding
party. One of these waiters, the Young Dunne, has a dream
of becoming an astronaut. Hester herself is a tinker,
whereas Xavier Cassidy, the counterpart to Creon in Euripides’
play, is a rich land-owner. There is also a supernatural
being, The Ghost Fancier, who appears in the Bog of Cats,
to announce Hester’s death.

Hester
says that she has two sides, a decent one and a violent
one. Her evil part surfaces when she feels threatened
by banishment from her space. The figure who incarnates
this threat is Xavier Cassidy. His very appearance in
the last act of Carr’s play is threatening: ‘Xavier Cassidy
comes up behind her [Hester] from the shadows, demonic,
red-faced, drink-taken, carries a gun’ (BBC:
328). The gun is the sign of violence that defines his
personality. In his speech he expresses his prepotency.
‘I ran your mother out of here and I’ll run you too like
a frightened hare’ (BBC: 328), he says to Hester.
The protagonist does not assimilate Cassidy’s discourse.
She does not accept his words, and this means that she
does not accept his authority; it also means that she
does not submit; but this very fact causes her expulsion.
Hester does not fear her opponent and fights with him.
At the end of this scene, her speech is ambiguous, giving
the impression that she will continue to defy him, on
the one hand, and that she agrees with Cassidy and will
leave the place as ordered, on the other hand:

HESTER
(laughs at him) – You’re sweatin’. Always knew ya were
yella to the bone. Don’t worry, I’ll be lavin’ this
place tonight, though not the way you or anywan else
expects. Ya call me a witch, Cassidy? This is nothin’,
you just wait and see the real –‘ (BBC: 331).

Xavier
Cassidy’s main concern is the possession of land. For
him, family is second to business, and he has accepted
his daughter’s marriage to Carthage only because his son-in-law
might be useful: Carthage is young and can help him in
his business of acquiring more and more land. Cassidy
has purchased Hester’s land in the Bog of Cats; therefore,
it belongs to him by law; nevertheless, Hester continues
to be the real owner of it. The very name of the space
reinforces her moral rights over the land: the real owner
of the Bog of Cats should be the Catwoman, the protagonist’s
double. The conflict between Cassidy and Hester is caused
by their irreconcilable views on the meaning of land.
Whereas for Cassidy it is connected to business and the
possession of material goods, for Hester it is coloured
with sentimental tones. It is impossible for her to leave,
since this is the place where she expects to join her
mother, Josie Swane, who, although she abandoned her when
she was a seven-year-old child, will one day return to
the Bog of Cats, as Hester faithfully believes. The dialogue
between Cassidy and Hester makes evident his concern with
written and signed contracts, modes of legalisation used
in our society. Hester offers him part of the money to
recuperate the land which she had sold at the time when
she ‘was bein’ coerced and bullied from all sides’, but
now that she has ‘regained’ her ‘pride’, she is certain
that she must stay in the Bog of Cats. Her opponent, however,
is inflexible: ‘A deal’s a deal’ (BBC: 293).
The discourse based on legality contaminates Caroline
– ‘sure ya signed it’ – and Carthage – ‘He [Xavier Cassidy]
signin’ his farm over to me this evenin’’ -, but it is
not assimilated by Hester: ‘Bits of paper, writin’, means
nothin’, can aisy be unsigned’ (BBC: 283 and 289). The
characters’ dissimilar points of view cause an unsolvable
conflict between them. The fact is that progress and civilisation
require the banishment of the marginalised travellers,
and Hester perfectly understands the point: ‘The truth
is you want to eradicate me, make out I never existed’
(BBC: 315). Although a strong and defiant woman,
she cannot manage to defeat the rich man who is protected
by law. Hester’s sole triumph is to leave her permanent
mark of blood on that soil, which morally belongs to her.
The moment of her death is the impressive scene that closes
the play. As in a ritual, she and the invisible Ghost
Fancier ‘go into a death dance with the fishing knife,
which ends plunged into Hester’s heart. She falls to the
ground. Exit Ghost Fancier with knife’ (BBC:
341). This scene, poetically conceived for its beauty
and ambiguity, matches the splendour of Medea’s escape.

Closer
to Euripides’ Medea than By the Bog of Cats,
including the process of not changing the names of some
characters, such as Jasão (Jason), Creonte (Creon), and
Egeu (Aegeus), by maintaining the chorus, by presenting
a counterpart to Medea’s nurse and her childminder blended
into one character (Corina, Joana’s best friend), and
also by a sort of Messenger (Boca Pequena, who is, in
fact, an informant who betrays his people), the Brazilian
play, nevertheless, also focuses on social groups from
a district located in Rio de Janeiro. Thus, the lower
class is represented by a group of four washerwomen; by
Egeu, an old man who repairs radios, by his wife Corina,
and by three men who work all day – although what they
do to earn money is not clear, except for Cacetão, who
is a gigolo. In their spare time these men meet to drink
beer and talk about their passions - football, samba,
and women – at a bar owned by Galego, a foreigner. Four
characters complete the social framework: Joana herself,
who lives in this community of poor people; Jasão, a sambista
(he composes and sings samba); Creonte, the rich and powerful
man and his daughter, Alma, the petty bourgeoise who is
going to marry Jasão.

Politically
engaged, Gota D’Água represents the Brazilian
society of the 1970s, but it also points to the reality
of all the humiliated people living elsewhere. According
to Paulo Pontes and Chico Buarque, the play intends to
show a society that was faced with a fierce capitalism
‘produced by the brutal concentration of wealth’ (Pontes/Buarque
1975: 9). During that time the lower classes were being
ignored even by the culture produced in Brazil. The authors
of Gota D’Água, however, credit the people with
the source of national identity, and therefore the poor
men and women who strive for life are central in their
play. In this sense, it is evident why the authors had
thought of a counterpart to the Greek chorus. Although
the chorus is an element that defines the Greek tragedy,
appropriate to ancient times when the collective experience
was shared, by maintaining the chorus - composed by four
washerwomen - the playwrights emphasise the common experience
shared by the people of a poor community whose suffering
and deprivations motivate solidarity with each other.

In
Gota D’Água, the heroine’s antagonist is Creonte,
the proprietor of ninety houses which had been sold to
poor people. He is not a benefactor. In fact, Creonte
has become very rich exploiting the poor. The people who
bought their houses from Creonte believed that they would
pay off for their debts in ten years. However, the instalments
increase each month; moreover, interest and monetary correction
are applied to the agreed value of the property; therefore,
these people often fail to comply with their commitments.
Joana is one of them. As for her, she has already paid
a fair sum of money for her house, but still owes a lot
of money to Creonte, who is a thief. She does not hesitate
to call him names publicly, and her behaviour makes the
big man furious. He is afraid of her powers and now she
is a nuisance; in consequence, he decides to banish Joana
from the community. Old Egeu, who is the only one aware
of the exploitation suffered by his neighbours and himself,
makes an attempt to protect Joana. He talks to his fellows,
trying to make them conscious of the situation, and succeeds
in convincing them that whatever happens to one of them
affects all others. They can win the struggle against
Creonte only if they keep together to claim their rights.

EGEU:
… If we / let Creonte undisturbedly put/ this woman
on the street, the dumped/ tomorrow can be you, …/ But
no one can live in his place/ for which he had paid
more than he owed/ and be dependent on the sympathy
of someone else/ to live in peace. No. Your space is
sacred/ … (GA: 140) (6)

Creonte’s
main target, however, is Joana. Very cleverly, he manages
to calm the claimants down by promising not to charge
them for the late instalments, with the condition that
they pay the next instalments on time. Joana, however,
must leave the house she lives in at once. He goes in
person to the protagonist’s house, accompanied by the
police, in order to force her to leave. The dialogue below
shows the confrontation between the two characters. It
is worth noting Creonte’s violent discourse and the same
concern with legal documents and signatures as Cassidy’s
in the Irish play:

CREONTE
- … I am going to be friendly/ once again/ Take this
money/ Leave without protesting, take it easy, I can
give you / a little more…

JOANA
- You can’t force me to get out …

CREONTE
- Whether you voluntarily and quickly leave,/ or the
policemen here can force you…

JOANA
- This is my place…

CREONTE
- Papers,/document… Deed, where is it?/ This conversation
is over./ No pardon, no agreement/ Either you quietly
leave or we will have a scandal here,/ the choice is
yours… (He beckons the policeman) / Guys… (GA:
155) (7)

The
scene that closes Gota D’Água presents two movements
in quick sequence, as if following the syncopation of
the samba. Firstly, just when Creonte is delivering a
speech to praise his son-in-law during Jasão and Alma’s
wedding, Egeu and Corina suddenly enter the room: ‘Egeu
has Joana’s corpse in his arms and Corina is carrying
the children’s corpses; they place the corpses before
Creonte and Jasão” (GA: 174) (8)
. There is a pause; everybody stands still. The second
movement prevents the audience’s emotional involvement
with the action by using the Brechtian technique, aiming
to maintain the audience’s awareness of the serious subject
of the play. Thus, in the sequence, all the cast, including
Joana and the two boys who played the role of her children,
begin to sing the theme-song. The play closes with the
projection of the headlines in a newspaper reporting on
a tragedy in a suburb in Rio de Janeiro.

A
final remark on these two plays based on Medea may be
made in reference to their titles. Neither Carr’s nor
Pontes/Buarque’s heroines give their names to their plays.
In the Irish rewriting, the space where the action develops
stands for the title, emphasising the community and Hester’s
inner drama. “The Bog of Cats” is also one of the songs
composed by Hester’s mother that refers to the bog, a
place of dreams and vain promises, a place to which Josie
Swane ‘one day will return,/In mortal form or in ghostly
form’ (BBC: 262). Curiously, the title of the
Brazilian play also refers to a song actually composed
by Chico Buarque and fictionally by Jasão, Joana’s lover.
Its refrain – ‘Leave my heart in peace/ for it is a pot
full of sorrow/ and any lack of attention/ please, don’t/
can be the last straw’ (9)
(GA: 47) – refers to the problematic situation
of the characters in the play. It is the image of Joana’s
deep sorrow for having been abandoned by Jasão and banished
by Creonte and of what she can do in such circumstances,
for she is about to explode with rage and bitterness.
It also expresses the suffering of the people of the community
since they are under pressure to pay for a debt they cannot
afford.

The
common concerns and the similar solutions presented in
the two versions of Medea lead to the conclusion
that, despite the traces of Irishness in By the Bog
of Cats and of Brazilianness in Gota
D’Água, the meaning of these plays are not limited
to the historical contexts of the countries each one belongs
to. Both of them mirror contemporary society: just as
happens on stage, the marginalised temporally occupy the
centre, but they are defeated in the end by the central
dominant power.

1 Zoraide Rodrigues Carrasco de
Mesquita has a PhD in Irish Studies from the University
of São Paulo. She has taught North American Literature
and Literature for Children and Youth at Ibirapuera University
in São Paulo for fifteen years. She lectured in
the Post Graduate Programmes in Literatures in English
at the University of São Paulo. She is one of the
directors of the Brazilian Association of Irish Studies
(ABEI).

5 In an interview (quoted by Enrica
Cerquoni), Marina Carr explains why she has made the counterpart
of Medea in By the Bog of Cats a traveller: ‘I chose to
make her a traveller because travellers are our national
outsiders, aren’t they?’ ( 2003: 178).

The
passage below is the end of Act 2, the moment when Frances
discovers that her husband, Fermoy Fitzgerald, had sacrificed
their own daughter, Ariel, ten years earlier. It is
worth noting the rapid sequence of events: as soon as
Frances hears about Fermoy’s crime, she does not hesitate
and kills him as revenge for the death of Ariel.